Brooklyn, N.Y. 6 Dec[ember] 1856.

TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS, ESQ.

MY DEAR SIR,

I do not know whether the lady to whom the enclosed note is addressed as Mrs or lady. You will at once see the propriety of the course I suggest. So many calls are made upon me that I must adopt such a rule.

I have rec’d the copy of your paper of 17th Oct & thank you for it. Somehow it escaped my notice—in Oct. Probably I was about or the paper did not come. My attention has been called to the Resolutions proposed by you at Syracuse.^*1At the fifth annual Jerry Rescue Celebration in Syracuse, New York, Douglass brought four resolutions before the meeting in a speech condemning slavery. In an appeal to the religion and morality of slave owners, Douglass intimated that God would inflict “terrible penalties” on slave owners, as he had on all “oppressors of people.” He further stated, “We would rejoice in a successful slave insurrection.” In one of the blunter resolutions, Douglass argued, “In killing a slave owner to secure freedom, the slave is guilty of no crime.” Though the resolutions appeared to condone violence and slave insurrection, Douglass directed his comments at slave owners as a warning, instead of at slaves. He sought to demonstrate the danger of owning slaves by relating the fates of slave owners in past insurrections in other parts of the world. , 19 December 1856. [B]y an English Correspondent. All I can do, in this free country, is to express an honest opinion. Your right to offer such circulations & to publish such a paper as you choose cannot justly be questioned. All who believe it would be right in a white man to use the means for obtaining his liberty: that you recommend ought not to object to a colored man using the same means. Those means in either case are abhorrent to my mind & heart. I am truly sorry you cherish such sentiments. “Vengeance is mine &c.”²Rom. 12:19. Then at sweet peace [illegible] [illegible] do good. [Let us] [illegible] the [illegible] of the spirit & all will be well. [illegible] [illegible] [illegible] enslaved & the case & defense of the God.

Truly yours

LEWIS TAPPAN.

ALS: Lewis Tappan Papers, DLC.